BAE Systems to increase number of apprenticeships in 2017

BAE Systems have announced they are taking on more apprentices in 2017 to work on projects such as the Astute class submarines Credit: PA

Defence giant BAE Systems is training a record number of apprentices and plans to take on hundreds more in 2017.

More than 2,000 are being trained across the firm's UK-based defence and security businesses, equivalent to 6% of the total workforce.

Plans were announced to recruit another 574 apprentices in September 2017.

BAE said it needed to keep recruiting highly skilled employees, particularly to work on two submarine programmes at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria.

Almost 300 apprentices will join the Barrow shipyard to work on the new Dreadnought class submarines and four remaining Astute class submarines.

Both types of submarine are destined for the Royal Navy, with work on the Dreadnought programme expected to continue well into the 2030s.